Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Prime minister Justin Trudeau should call for a worldwide
referendum on global carbon fee-and-dividend at the COP21 climate change
conference in Paris.
The conference will start on Nov. 30 and will last until Dec. 11.
The general consensus is that, while it will make some progress, it won't make the breakthrough we need.
A worldwide referendum on carbon fee-and-dividend would be that breakthrough.James Hansen, the man who many consider the dean of climate scientists, has called for carbon fee-and-dividend many years and with some success.
Carbon fee-and-dividend is elegantly simple – charge a fee on fossil
fuels at source, similar to a carbon tax. Unlike a typical carbon tax,
however, the money would not go into general government revenue but be
distributed in equal dividends to everyone.
For those on the right, it's a small government solution. Most
governments already collect some kind of tax or royalty from fossil fuel
production, and so little additional bureaucracy would be needed to
collect the fee. Similarly, people would only need to prove that they
are human beings and of a certain age to collect their dividends,
meaning minimal bureaucracy on the distribution side as well.
For those on the left, carbon fee-and-dividend would tend to
re-distribute income, helping to correct the world’s growing economic
inequality. According to Citizens' Climate Lobby – Canada,
two-thirds of people would receive more in dividends than they would
spend in fossil fuel fees. The bottom 20 per cent of earners could
expect to receive 150 per cent more than they would pay.
Many economists agree that carbon fee-and-dividend would be our most
powerful tool in dealing with climate change. In fact, it is hard to
imagine a successful approach that does not include carbon
fee-and-dividend as its central pillar.
Here are some ballpark figures.
According to Wikipedia, the world produces about 30 billion tonnes
per year of carbon dioxide through the burning of fossil fuels. A fossil
fuel fee set at the same level of B.C.'s carbon tax of $30 per tonne of
carbon dioxide would therefore raise about $900 billion per year.
Assuming that the dividends would only go to adults, and that 5 billion
of the 7 billion people in the world are over the age of 18, then that
would mean every adult human being on the planet would get a dividend of
about $180 per year.
Carbon fee-and-dividend might be our most powerful tool, but to have a hope of being effective it would need to be global.
National programs, even if they involve major emitters such as the United States or China, are simply not going to cut it.
Put a fee on fossil fuel use in one jurisdiction and certain
industries will move to another. If the fee rises high enough, there
would be the danger of creating a black market for untaxed oil and coal.
Both outcomes could be minimized by global carbon fee-and-dividend.
Going global implies going through the United Nations. Implementing
global carbon fee-and-dividend would justify and require reforming that
organization. A good place to start might be by creating a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.
Here in Canada, as in many other nations around the world, we
sometimes put important questions to the people in a referendum. One
example would be the referendum on transit held last spring in B.C.'s
Lower Mainland.
Organizing a worldwide referendum on carbon fee-and-dividend would be
a difficult but not impossible task. The United Nations has organized
successful votes in war-ravaged locations such as Kampuchea and East
Timor.
Human-caused climate change is a global problem and requires global
solutions. A worldwide referendum on global carbon fee-and-dividend
would be a good next step, and Canada should lead the way.– Author Keith McNeill is the editor of the award-winning Clearwater Times
newspaper. Last spring, McNeill, age 65, and his friend, Jean Nelson,
age 81, cycled from Toronto to Ottawa to promote an online petition calling for a Canada-wide referendum on carbon fee-and-dividend.

About Me

Over a total of eight months in 1987 and 1989 I walked from Clearwater, BC, to Toronto, ON, a distance of about 4,000 km. Purpose of the walk was to have been a round-the-world pilgrimage to India and back to honor Mahatma Gandhi. Unfortunately, a minor but persistent foot injury (plantar fasciitis) forced an end to the walk. However, as this blog shows, the walk continues, but in a different form.
'Presently, I am the editor of the Clearwater-North Thompson Times in Clearwater. In 2011 and 2014 the Canadian Community Newspaper Association awarded the Times first place for best all round newspaper in its circulation class. The Times has been a top three finalist 10 times for General Excellence with BC and Yukon Community Newspaper Association in its circulation class during the 13 years I have been editor, and won first place in 2006, 2010 and 2014. My hobbies include hiking, cross-country skiing, and photography.
I was born in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. In 1971 I graduated with a B.Sc. in Biology from Notre Dame University of Nelson, B.C. I was in Freetown, Sierra Leone (West Africa) for two years, 1974 and 1975, doing research on oyster culture.